Midwinter
by Dante Corwyn
Summary: It is the time of the Gathering.  The remaining Immortals have travelled to a far-away land to fight for the Prize.  But after the War, there is not much land anywhere else.  I'll provide a explanation over how the story is structured at the end.
1. Chapter 1

Ryan shudders as the Quickening finally ends and he struggles to pull himself up. After four minutes, the Quickening brought him to his knees, reminding him again that he is not dead yet. The downpour has filled some small holes in the ground and he drags himself to one, scoops up the muddy rain, and drinks the cleanest water he's tasted in two days. There is no-one about, although that means nothing really. Even here in these mountains, a quickening cannot be hidden. He felt his last opponent half a mile away just an hour ago, and fought him for twenty minutes before he finally managed to force him to drop his sword. It took another three minutes to get him onto the ground, and another one to cut his hamstrings until he could finally tear off his neck collar and take his head. Ryan looks at the Germans body, knows the scars that mark the torso and knows they happened 600 years before, by a Frenchman in Paris who fell to the German's axe. He doesn't know the Frenchman's name, but knows his face. He might even recall the name if he saw the head again, though that would be impossible, it since rotting away in a shallow grave. But now is the Gathering, where there can be only one. Maybe it is time for the impossible to happen.

A mile down a path, tucked underneath an overhang is a cave that could shelter a man uncomfortably, and wouldn't be able to fit the German without giving him a permanent hunchback. Instead though, there will be some dried meat and tinned fruit that somehow survived a looting. Ryan knows this, because the German knew that. Ryan only just manages to lift the Germans great sword and shatters it over some rock. No point giving a possible opponent another weapon. A quick look around to see if anyone is in sight reveals no-one, at least not immortal anyway. The range that they can detect one another has drastically changed in the past few weeks since the Gathering appeared to officially start. Duncan had told him once how all the remaining immortals would feel compelled to travel to a distant land to confront one another. He never thought that it might be because there was no-where else to go. The bombs saw to that.

The food is still there, surprisingly still edible. Even though he has the Germans memories of holds and grips on the rock, he still takes his time. The German took his own route, and he was also 2 feet taller than Ryan, so any path that he takes to get to the cave has to be his own. After eating, he examines the supplies that were left. A sniper rifle lies in the back. Only a few bullets, he certainly couldn't take a head with the gun, but the scope is the more useful part of it anyway. If someone has a cult of followers with them, that would even the odds at least. A Geiger counter, probably useless here, although might be worth taking along. An immortal with a background in science might know if radiation would be a problem for them, though more likely if there were some survivors out of the mountains, he could trade it for something.

Would the Prize make that a moot point? Mortality was a possible reward, so most immortals seemed to think. But none of his kills seemed to have thought of any other possibility. Even the oldest, his memories part of the substance of a head-hunter who he had confronted when he first got to the mountains, did not have any other ideas over what the Prize would be. It's still his own kills that he has the better insight into. The further and further down the chain of who had killed who, the harder it is to see their past, their own memories, their skills and experience. A smattering of a long-forgotten language sometimes, a useful counter to an attack from a sword style disregarded in the past when in a fight for his life All useful in their time and place. With the space to move around in, Ryan would try some of the German's moves. See if any of his style could work with his own. Even with the difference in limb length and height, surely something would prove useful.

In the distance, a thunderstorm begins. The rifle is snatched and Ryan crawls to the front, peers through the scope. There's a man in rags in the maelstrom. Even with the quickening thundering around him he clutches to his stiletto and meat cleaver as he rises through the air. Around him dance four men and five women, all chanting and bowing at the man raised above them. One gets too close, rises slightly in the air, and is incinerated by the quickening. Ryan doesn't recognise him. Neither does the German, or any other kill that he has made in the past hundred years. There is a smattering of recognition from someone buried deep within his mind, but no more. Maybe with more practice and more heads behind him, he could read more of the others memories. Or maybe they would be overwhelmed by the stronger, fresher personalities.

It soon ends. The rag man stumbles to one of the women who leads him away. A male starts a fire with a bundle of twigs and paper that he seems to be responsible for carrying. The others take the corpse of the fallen immortal and start cutting it up. Ryan is grateful that the range of the rifle is just over a mile, the scope a little more. The small computer imbedded in the scope tries to be helpful, but there are only six bullets, and immortals usually don't practice with guns. He will have to wait. The rifle would hopefully do most of the work, and pick off some of the followers at least. The rag man he could probably down in a shot, but by the time he reached him with his sword, the bullet would have been forced out by the rag man's body healing itself. Even a head shot wouldn't stop him, which since he has lasted this long has to be a fair bet. One immortal he had come across, one who had been forced to cut his hand off after it was pinned in a rock slide, had started to regrow it. Not a pleasant prospect. Thankfully he stayed dead after his head was cut off. To make sure, he burned the body and buried the bones.

The woman who led the ragman away stumbles back into sight. Another woman swaps places with her. Maybe by the time he has used the third, the meat will be ready. Ryan looks for places for an ambush. This one will take some planning. And the planning goes through the night, and into the day.

It's not as if he needs to sleep any more.


	2. Chapter 2

For two days Ryan has been killing people. A man and woman from the group sneaked off together and fell into a patch of grass hiding shattered glass treated with snake venom. Another man tripped over a concealed wire and toppled off a cliff, thinking he was being chased by a wild animal. Two of the woman fight over the hilt of the greatsword Ryan shattered a few days before, one killing the other before she herself was killed by Ryan's sniper rifle. Here on this hill, he has room to fight, a sheer level off the ground below by a good two metres, unsteady terrain that he has memorised, and a good angle to shoot. Another of the men would have taken a bullet hadn't the rag man walked in front of the path and caught it in the chest. Ryan clutches his head and tries not to scream. Half a mile away he feels him. Another survivor through the ages, here to fight for the Prize.

The older ones always hurt the most.

Memories not his own spring to life. A madman in plate armour rushes at a wife not Ryan's own, hatchets drawn and running with astonishing speed, and is only stopped by the timely interception of the husband's longsword. A brief duel, only interrupted when the husband pushes him over the castles wall.

Who is that idiot? I'll be killed and killed again here on this beach by the Germans guns, not by the likes of him. Not now anyway. There's no time for the Game here. He doesn't even have a rifle with him…

Pin him down. Pin him down! You don't have your sword but you still have weapons! Good. Now hit him with the car door. Again. Again! His eyes now. Blind him. Screw honour. He ran you off the road, why the hell should you show him the same courtesy. Damn it, who's shooting at me! This isn't how it should work! One on one you stinking bastard!

Bareth the Chopper, formally known as the ragman, swaggers a little and smiles right at Ryan, even with the distance between them. And charges. The group with him leap in the air, chanting "Fresh food! Fresh food!". And they start drawing their own weapons. Sub-machine guns.

Ryan doesn't need to keep an eye on Bareth. He'll feel him soon enough. And so he uses the sniper rifle before the group start to use their own guns. A headshot kills one of the men, and the final one dives for cover, but not until he's taken a shots to the back. The final member of Bareth's group gives down and has the sense not to get back up, but Ryan uses another bullet to encourage her to stay still, it chipping rock over her head. One bullet remains. In just over a minute, Bareth has nearly reached him. The final shot misses him as he sidesteps and leaps to the ledge where the rifle lays.

Primed and armed.

A defense mechanism, to stop the information in the rifles computer being taken. Also used as a suicide device, to stop the rifle itself being taken and used. And carries enough of a charge to vaporize the sniper if need be. To Immortals, it's a distraction at best. Ryan had stepped back out of its range just seconds before, weapons drawn. Bareth uses astonishing speed and his full body for his attacks, but luckily he rarely changes what weapons he uses. Ryan's weapons are concealed and nearby, but a longsword would not work against Bareth's speed. The butterfly swords will have to do.

Ryan charges forward into the dust cloud, one arm at neck level, the other pointing at the gut and gets lucky. Bareth's charge has stopped with the explosion and he doesn't see Ryan in time to stop the sword piercing his stomach, although he has the stiletto out and it grazes Ryan's side. Ryan keeps pushing forward, drives them over the ledge, twisting the knife as they fall.

Ryan pins him down, works to disembowel Bareth with the butterfly sword. He's lost the other somewhere else, uses his free hand to hold his arm with the stiletto down. Bareth punches his side again and again, and it's only when Ryan turns his head he realizes that it's not his fist, but the meat cleaver. The sight makes him dizzy. He leaves the sword in Bareth's stomach and pins his other arm down, tries to pry fingers apart, but his blood is poring down his arm and he can't get a firm grip. Tries it with the other arm and finally loosens the fist. He's so engrossed with this that he doesn't hear the clicks of safeties, and he sees the survivor of his traps wielding two Heckler and Koch weapons.

Ryan is shredded by bullets. Flesh tears away, followed by muscle and bone, leaving scraps of organs behind. His left arm dangles off at the elbow, a toe blasted off. His heart and lungs cling to his frame, struggling to function even while riddled with holes. His right arm is all that holds his body upright, his spine clipped throughout. Bareth is shielded from most of the weapons fire, at least at first, until the bullets tear through the spaces in Ryan's body. His upper chest is riddled through, the heart mostly gone. His arms are fine though. He grips the stiletto again and slices Ryan' wrist.

The bullets finally end and all Ryan can hear through the clicking of empty chambers are sobs. He daren't look down at his ruined body. He feels the drip, drip, drip of his blood poring down, but death, or the temporary kind at least doesn't come. And the dripping stops. A phantom pain in the arm, one without the muscles to let it move. He's healing. There's no longer the recovery that can only come with rest and time, it is happening now, in the now. There is no time for Zen. To his right, he hears the clatter of wood on stone.

"Susan!" Bareth croaks. "Take the cleaver! Off with his head!" And Ryan hears stumbling steps behind him, slowly at first, but soon bolder and faster. Bareth sneers up at him, eyes full of blood but slowly healing. The butterfly knife is still in his stomach, but Ryan daren't look down. He daren't remove his grip on Bareth's hand, not with the stiletto there, and he can't move his right arm to pick up the cleaver.

He can swing it though.

Bareth screams as a hand crudely slaps his heart. And that's the distraction Ryan needs. He grabs the stiletto, pushes himself up, and slams it into Bareth's eye. His scream is deafening, even with his lungs shriveled up. The woman is still behind him. She's slowed down now, not sure what to do. And Ryan finally has feeling in his arm. Keeping a grip on the stiletto, he feels for the cleaver. It's a dull blade. Decapitation would have to be done be pinning down the victim and hacking away until the head is finally cleaved off. No time. Keeping him in this position makes him vulnerable to Susan, who could just kick him off when she recovered her courage.

"The cleaver Susan! Off with his head! Later there will be cake!"

She stumbles towards them. Ryan flings the cleaver as far as he can to the right into a patch of wild flowers. Susan runs towards them, feeling around. Ryan flexes a little. He can straighten himself up a little. His legs flex with cramp, screaming to be used. His other weapons are on the ledge above. No time to get there, Susan would have found the cleaver by then.

And the other memories return. An Englishman scarred from the Great War, dropping his sword in a duel, letting himself die. Ashamed with himself, unable to talk to the wives of the men who died protecting him from a madman at Normandy. A teenager in both obvious and not-so-obvious years with a sheltered perception of the Game, escaping from Bareth and his followers in a staged car crash, only to die at Mako's sword a day later in a foolish attempt to take his anger out on someone else. And a French knight, drunk and distraught and vulnerable after burying his wife, her head hacked off with a stolen cleaver and left in their rooms. A semblance of them bubbles up and through Ryan's eyes see the man who has caused so much misery. And Ryan, himself and not the others remembers one of his very first lessons. To use your environment.

Do. Not. Look.

Ryan closes his eyes and grips both blades. The butterfly sword tears through freshly regenerated organs and spine, paralyzing Bareth, at least for a while. The stiletto smoothly draws out, and is thrust into Bareth's other eye. Ryan pushes himself up, and pushes himself up. Walks forward. To the right, he hears the scrape of metal on stone. Susan jumps up and down. Not much time. Ryan walks forward, sees the land in his mind. The flowers to the right. Bareth a few meters behind him. Loose rocks just ahead. Feels down and finds one the perfect size. Breathes through shattered lungs and pulls it up to his chest. Turns back round. Bareth has recovered enough to start dragging the butterfly knife out, the stiletto already to the side. Ryan falls to his knees above him, holding something that blocks out the sun.

A voice not his own uses Ryan's mouth. He doesn't know the words, but the look of Bareth's face gives Ryan satisfaction of his own. He's never been a sadistic man, but with what he knows of this man, he may become one. Instead, Ryan uses the words older than him by thousands of years.

"There can be only one".

And pulverizes Bareth's face with one blow.

Look.

Susan stares at them both. The cleaver drops and shatters. Ryan finally allows himself to breath and looks down at the mess of his body. He slowly stands. It's a sense of pride. This abomination, the worst of what the gift and curse of immortality can drive a man to do hasn't stopped him. Only the quickening will, and if he's got any say with it, it will take a while to drive him to his knees. The smell of ozone pours through their senses Bareth's corpse rises. Electricity crackles around the bloody stump of the neck. And Ryan turns to Susan and only says one word.

"Run".


	3. Chapter 3

It has to be a first Ryan thinks before the quickening hits him. Hundreds and hundreds of kills, and finally there is no severed head looking up at him in shock. Eyes still full of life. Mouths wide open, trying to mouth out words while muscles still work. I was killed by the likes of you? That's the usual one. Occasionally rage that they are dead at all, regardless of who took their head.

Once or twice, a thank you.

No head this time. Bareth's skull is smashed to pieces. Spinal column splintered and torn from the neck down. Ryan will burn the body after he recovers. Susan skits around the corner. The man who has held onto her for so long finally dead, she doesn't know if she should obey Ryan and run from the quickening, or run into it and be destroyed. She can't commit to a decision. Not yet.

Their hairs rise in the change of electrical pressure. They are both more alert to what's around them. Susan knows the cleaver in her hand is not ideally balanced, even though she's never held it before, let alone use it as a weapon. Ryan only knows that the copper taste in his mouth is blood. But at least it's all his own. He knows it's all his own.

Shattered legs keep Ryan upright. He's seen the remains of his body and he's laughing as they knot together in front of his eyes. Invisible hands hold his organs in place as flesh and muscle grow. There's the pain of tearing flesh from bullets just a few minutes from before and he laughs at it.

I'm not dead. Not yet.

Lightning crackles over Bareth's corpse. One arc at first, but a second and then a third dance over, hunch over like a spider about to pounce. And then they hit him. Crackling over open wounds, cooking flesh and making blood boil. Ryan snaps his head back, tears some freshly regenerated cartilage. And screams.

It's only recently that quickenings have been so kind to the battlefield. All their rage and energy goes straight to the victor. Some of the stone below has splintered, some sand turned to glass. No exploding windows. No revving cars. Maybe this is how it happened before fights took place in cities.

Maybe that's why the Gathering is happening here.

Other quickenings are devastating. Susan's experience of them is from what she's seen of Brennan's kills, and the ones that she's seen in the distance ever since she's been here. But this is both the most peaceful and most violent she has ever seen or read about. She cannot see Ryan any more. Where he was standing before is a white sun. She dare not look in case she goes blind.

She looks. All she can smell is burning flesh. And all she can hear is Ryan's screams.


	4. Chapter 4

All of all the things that Susan could have packed with her when she started running the first time, sunglasses were not the highest thing on her list. She stumbles just before the first rush of the Quickening strikes Ryan, and back-peddles away. Slowly at first, she is to rapture by the spectacle, but she soon remembers what happens with moths and flames and she pushes herself back until she is at least a few good meters away, her arm shielding her eyes. Lightning bounces around Ryan. Limbs thrash around like a spider exposed to nerve-gas. Ruined vocal cords try to cry out in pain but can't. And she still cannot turn her head away.

It's not that the light is blinding that's the trouble. It's because it is experience of the Quickening itself is so more intense than she has been exposed to. Even with Bareth and his kills, they have never had this intensity. She has never witnessed such beauty and chaos localized in such a tightly controlled spot.

Or even read about it.

Ryan has it worse. At the centre of the maelstrom, lightning lashes again and again at him. Never before has a Quickening been so potent. But then again, Bareth was old. Older than Ryan. Older than any of Ryan's other kills. And Bareth had never had an excuse to stop playing the Game before. Each strike is an individual, one other Immortal that Bareth has killed through the ages. And each strike is a scream.

You killed me.

Thank you.

Thank you for stopping the monster.

They slip into Ryan's body and mind, and this is the push that his body needs. Cells rebuild. Organ's start to knot themselves back together again. Blood starts pumping through shredded arteries that spontaneously rebuild themselves. Skin scabs over, sheds, and starts the process again. And it hurts even more than getting shot did.

And then Bareth arrives.

Finally, Susan has to look away. Ryan is thrown against the rock face and doesn't rise through the air as to what supposedly happened to Connor MacLeod when he defeated the Kurgan. No ghosts of former Immortals rush around Ryan here. Whatever sense of Bareth that lives within the lightning wants Ryan to suffer. So Ryan does not fly through the air. He is dragged along rocks, newly healed skin torn again while it regrows. Bones splinter and knot together stronger than before. A cut here, a tear there, all gone and come back in an instant one after the other, until he's lifted off the surface by the Quickening, finally given a chance to properly heal. Sounds thrash through the air, hardly recognizable from any noise a human would make.

And finally the lightning slows. Ryan falls prone against the rocky floor and can't bear to bring himself up. It's been months since he found he no longer needed to sleep, and the desire to climb into a bed has come back stronger than ever in his lifetime. Just five minutes will do. Five minutes of not running or plotting or fighting or hunting. He shuts his eyes. Relaxes against the rock, the best bed he's had in months.

And the cold metal against the back of his neck, the sharp point just breaking skin, and the harsh click of the safety taken off a handgun is the best alarm clock he has ever had.


End file.
